Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1990

BOOK REVIEW Managing Employee Rights and Responsibilities. Edited by Chimezie A. B. Osigweh, Yg. Quorum Books, Westport, Connecticut, 1989, 297 pp. In 1987, C. A, B. Osigweh edited a book, the first of its kind, entitled Communicating Employee Responsibilities and Rights: A Modern Management Mandate. The scholarly works in that volume were gleaned from papers presented at the annual meetings of a newly formed Council on Employee Responsibilities and Rights, also a creation largely shaped by Professor Osigweh. Managing Employee Rights and Responsibilities is a companion volume, derived in the same manner as that first benchmark effort to bring together scholars and practioners from a wide array of disciplines, to focus upon employee responsibilities and rights. To do justice in reviewing each of the 14 chapters that make up this text would be exhausting, and, therefore, the scope of my comments will be limited to remarks upon several of those who author the individual chapters, and upon what was for me the philosophic thrust of the work as a whole. The disciplines represented by this assembly and the distinguished achievements of these individuals whose writings create the substance of this text deserve mention: Robert Coulson from the American Arbitration Association and a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School; Michael Gordon, professor at the Institute of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University; Vernon Jensen, professor of communication and director of graduate studies at the University of Minnesota; Michael Kavanangh, associate dean of the School of Business and professor of management at the State University of New York, Albany; Walter Nord, professor of organizational psychology in the School of Business, Washington University; Hera3, Perrett, professor of law at Villanova; William Scott, professor of management and organization, University of Washington, Seattle; Jack Stieber, professor of labor and industrial relations and economics at Michigan State University; Merle Waxman, director of the Office for Women in Medicine at Yale; Alan Westin, professor of public law and government at Columbia University. These individuals and several others composed the material for a conversation about employer responsibilities. Many of these individuals have authored much larger works elsewhere, and have developed and tested their ideas not only in such forums as this, but also in the workplace. Westin, who has authored a number of books such as Whistleblowing and Privacy Issues in Monitoring of Employer Work on VDTs and articles in Business Week, the Wall Street Journal and Fortune, sets forth requirements 225 0892-7545/90/0900-0225506,00/0 9 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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for effective adjudicative programs based upon more than a dozen years of contact with several hundred companies. If there is any theme that brings together these disparate works, it is justice and moral fights. The topics covered concern legislation pertaining to unjust discharge, justice in organized and unorganized settings, affirmative action, positive discipline, complaint resolution, the right to know, whistleblowing, employee rights, and management philosophy and practice. Procedural justice and theories of justice are prominent themes. Does then Managing Employee Rights and Responsibilities resonate about a common philosophy? William Scott charges the management professorate as furthering a managerial elitism that, in keeping with the thinking of Vilfredo Pareto, Chester Bamard, and Herbert Simon, engineers "consent by manipulating" the workforce. Scott opines that management process, if divorced from moral values, makes possible Eichmann's "efficient procedure for mass murder" and other corporate corruption. Walter Nord, in the concluding chapter of his text, echoes this concern in a call for a critical as opposed to a functionalist study of organizational life. Nord posits that the language of rights is not far from advocacy of special interests and that foremost among these interests is employment; he argues that "unemployment acts to discipline the workforce." Paul Salipante and Bruce Fortado, from a careful qualitative study of grievants, detail what are the rights that concern today's employees. The rights to job stability and equitable treatment head their list. Their case for employee rights is explicated in terms of legal, moral, and practical perspectives. The agenda established by this judiciously edited work begs for an extended conversation. How well these rationales for more democratic principles in the workplace might fare if subjected to rigorous dialectic challenge is something to be decided by future volumes. A ready forum for such debate is available in the Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal under the guidance of its managing editor, Frederick Zeller, and in future forums in the annual conventions of the Council on Employee Responsibilities and Rights. William I. Gorden

Professor and Coordinator of Organizational Communication Studies Kent State University Kent, OH 44242

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1990

B O O K REVIEW

Motivating Strategies for Performance and Productivity. By Paul J. Champagne and 1L Bruce McAfee. Quorum Books, Westport, Connecticut, 1989, 223 pp., $45.00 Hardcover. The improvement of productivity continues to be a popular subject in business publishing. Despite a plethora of materials describing strategies and techniques for reviving sluggish organizational performance, there always exists room for one more. Champagne and McAfee have given managers a useful compendium of many of the performance-enhancing strategies currently used by a broad spectrum of public, private, and not-for-profit institutions. While each of the methods addressed by the authors are presented elsewhere in more detailed treatises, this publication offers a good general introduction. Following an opening chapter on employee motivation theory, somewhat peppered with old adages, the authors review ten classic methods from elementary punishment and discipline to behavior modification and team building. Each strategy presents theory in combination with actual organizational examples. A most useful inclusion for the practicing manager are the exhibits. These clear guidelines offer the manager or human resource professional a quick and handy reference for implementing a given strategy. The chapter describing the use of behavior modification follows the Brown and Presbie model, including pinpointing specific behaviors, counting and charting behaviors, changing behavior by altering the consequences, and evaluating the improvement in an employee' s behavior. Corporate applications at Emery Air Freight and other companies argue for the use of behavior modification, to which the authors also present the common criticisms of Organization Behavior Modification programs. However, the most interesting aspect of this chapter may be the list of rules for using positive reinforcement and the employee self-recording checklist. These simple additions to the material advance the chapter from textbook to practical management guide. The second strategy addresses the use of punishment and discipline and immediately confronts the controversy surrounding this subject. Should both punishment and discipline be avoided as dysfunctional, or should managers rely on them as feasible and financially justifiable in some situations? The authors review common progressive discipline systems, discipline without punishment, affirmative discipline, and other alternatives. The actual examples are lively, as are the exhibits. 227 0892-7545/90/0900-0227506.00/0 9 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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"Rewarding High Performance" reviews expectancy theory and organizational responses to the rewards component: merit raises, bonuses, individual and group financial incentive programs, merchandise and recognition incentives. In addition to reinforcing the belief that money motivates employees to peak performance, the authors caution managers to be aware that there are times when extrinsic rewards cannot and should not be used. The chapter devoted to fair employee treatment begins with the determination of equity and stress on the relationship between employee productivity and the perceptions of equity. This relationship is appropriately emphasized as an important one for human resource managers. The authors describe organizational systems for resolving problems of inequity including both open door policies and formal complaint systems. A major weakness of this chapter is the omission from the discussion of formal complaint systems of grievance systems, which exist in virtually all unionized organizations. While fair treatment of employees is obviously an inexpensive strategy, the authors also stress the advantage to the practicing manager of earning employee respect and esteem. This is not a ground-breaking strategy and the authors admittedly recommend that it be used in conjunction with other techniques described in the book. However, a more critical shortcoming is the neglect of the reality of modem corporations. While equitable treatment of employees is easily understood as an abstract, textbook concept, it may prove far more difficult for practicing managers living in the real world of hierarchical and political organizations where biases and prejudices abound. Basic principles and concepts of goal setting follow in the next chapter. Such simple implementation strategies as giving clear instructions and using time management techniques are included with a section discussing management by objectives. The tone of this chapter seems to change from higher-level managers to first line supervisors. Again the exhibits are most helpful as a guide to the less experienced manager. "Redesigning Jobs" includes work simplification, job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment. Enriching includes work content, methods content, and personal content. The descriptions of actual company applications are most interesting, although none are presented that have not appeared elsewhere in the literature. Prerequisites for successful job redesign are designated as involving unions in job redesign, making changes in the work itself, using monetary rewards, becoming aware of the costs, generating support from top management, and other considerations. "Meeting the Unique Needs of Employees" applies Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Alderfer's ERG theories to flexible benefits systems, alternative work schedules, the use of leaves of absence and vacations, and social programs. Since these are mostly organizationwide programs and usually outside the authority of an individual manager to implement, the authors astutely include a segment describing the determination and satisfaction of employee needs. While Maslow's needs theory is an old standby in motivation texts, this offering includes a good exhibit, directly relating each of Maslow's needs to potential examples of how to satisfy those needs. Transferring a group of employees from a scapegoating and accusatory mode to an effective work team is a powerful talent for managers to master. "Building Effective Work Teams" includes informal approaches for team building: encouraging employee interaction, promoting pride, developing norms or expected standards, rewarding employees for teamwork through praise, money, Japanese-style mutual indebtedness, and

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team prizes. Formal approaches for developing effective work teams include improved communications, role clarification, improving interpersonal relationships and team goal setting and problem setting. The guidelines for using team development techniques are a positive addition, which transform the chapter from an abstract textbook to a more useful managerial reference book. However, these concepts are more difficult to implement than the chapter would lead one to believe, and further information is crucial to successful team building. Health professionals, psychologists, and business analysts have written much about the impact on individual employees. Champagne and McAfee discuss the need to reduce employee stress as a productivity enhancement strategy. They describe organizational approaches, including designing physical settings, altering the organizational climate, clarifying job duties, and stress management training. Individual approaches to stress management are discussed, including effective use of leisure time relaxation training and meditation, biofeedback training, muscle monitoring, exercise/fitness programs, and keeping a stress diary. This chapter alternates its focus between top-level managers with broad organization authority and lower-level managers with limited authority, to individuals trying to manage their own stress. It provides an excellent overview, covering a wide range of perspectives, again utilizing some interesting exhibits. Finally, the last chapter addresses a long-advocated approach to motivating employees: participation in managerial activities in the organization. The authors lead the discussion with a provocative question: do employees want to participate? This is answered affirmatively using a survey revealing that while not everyone wants greater participation, many do want to share in decision making at some level. The authors suggest that employee participation is beneficial not only for the workers, but also for the organization. Champagne and McAfee review some potential benefits and disadvantages of participation and also some guidelines for determining the appropriate degree of participation. A good outline for initiating greater employee participation is followed by descriptive applications of participatory management: quality circles, self-managing teams, and labor-management committees. This book might be just another addition to the already existing voluminous literature on productivity. However, the inclusion of the guidelines and exhibits makes it an interesting combination of textbook and practitioner's handbook. It is a useful compendium of basic management/HRM motivation textbooks organized for managers who want to make the most productive use of limited reading time. If the manager/reader is a business school graduate this will serve as a compact reminder of his/her studies. If not a business school graduate, this is an excellent introduction to motivation theory. One weakness, which might be addressed in a future edition, is the minimal acknowledgement of unions and/or employee associations, whose involvement is often critical to the success of some of the suggested programs. While the discussions of job redesign and enhancing employee participation include such techniques as labor-management committees, other chapters seem to ignore the issue of employee organizations. At a time when other authors, such as Abraham Zaleznik, are lamenting the degeneration of leadership in corporate America, it is reassuring to see the trust Champagne and McAfee have in current managers. Zaleznik, in contrast, believes that modern

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executives control their employees with psychological pressure instead of motivating them. He argues that goal-setting has become a mechanical exercise whereby managers rely on what has succeeded in the past, shying away from innovating thinking. The actual case applications included in Motivating Strategies for Performance and Productivity allow for some optimism in the face of Zaleznik's more pessimistic view. The corporate cases and the numerous guidelines are also what set this book apart from the run-of-the-mill textbook and make it worthwhile reading for the interested human resource manager. Janet Stem Solomon

Professor of Management Towson State University Towson, Maryland 21204-7097

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, gol. 3, No. 3, 1990

BOOK REVIEW

Drug Testing in the Workplace. By Robert P. DeCresce, Mark Lifshitz, Adrianne Mazura and Joseph Tilson. The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1989, 278 pp., $45.00. Drug testing undoubtedly became one of the most popular human resource interventions for the 1980s. The book, Drug Testing in the Workplace, provides a comprehensive analysis of legal, medical, and pragmatic issues surrounding drug-testing programs. The book targets a wide population of legal and medical practitioners as well as decision makers who might implement drug-testing programs. Despite the aim for practitioners, the complex analysis of legal and medical issues is equally appropriate for an academic audience. The book is organized around succinct topical areas. However, there are a number of themes that tend to recur throughout the book. In particular, the authors emphasize that the drug tests currently available cannot measure impairment, recency of substance use, or even the amount of drugs ingested or inhaled. The inherent limitations of the tests are further exacerbated by substandard laboratories. The need for confirmatory testing is emphasized throughout the book. A thorough legal analysis of drug testing can be found in Chapters 2 and 6. Chapter 2 discusses the standard issues that one would find in any legal discussion of drug testing, including the public/private employer distinction, Fourth Amendment considerations, and tort claims of defamation, invasion of privacy, and wrongful discharge. To the credit of the authors, however, the analysis extends to areas that have been relatively unexplored with regard to testing programs. Specifically, the authors explore the possibility of statutory preemption that might preclude individual lawsuits in some cases. The chapter introduces some of the complexities that surround drug testing in a unionized environment. Chapter 6 more fully develops the discussion of the legal aspects of drug testing in a unionized environment. This chapter provides what is perhaps the most comprehensive examination of the interplay of labor laws, arbitral standards, and contractual language as they relate to drug-testing programs. The authors explore potential injunctive relief under the Norris-Laguardia Act and unfair labor practices under the National Labor Relations Act, with emphasis on the Section 8(a)(5) requirement to bargain in good faith. The section on contractual language and arbitral standards examines grievance procedures, management rights clauses, the role of past practice and arbitral standards for due process and just cause in discipline and discharge cases. 231 0892-7545/90/0900-0231506.00/0 9 1990 Plenum Publishing CorporalJon

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An unfortunate omission from the legal analysis of labor relations issues is a discussion of public sector labor laws. The authors discuss only private sector labor laws as they relate to drug testing issues. The authors overlook the high rate of unionization in the public sector, particularly in the safety occupations. These also happen to be the occupations that have been most frequently targeted for drug testing programs and have precipitated many of the Constitutional challenges to the programs. Since the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to public sector employers, a complete legal analysis should examine how state and federal public sector bargaining laws differ with regard to the scope of bargaining, the extent of the duty to bargain, and statutory rights of the employer. These variations have clear implications for the extent of the public employer's discretion in implementing a drug-testing program for unionized employees. An analysis of medical issues is provided in Chapters 3 and 4. These chapters focus on the kinds of drugs most frequently abused and the wide range of tests available to detect drug abuse. Chapter 4 identifies general categories of drugs as well as imitative substances and their street names. The authors describe in considerable detail how each drug affects the body but stop short of listing symptoms of drug abuse and/or how symptoms of certain mediCal problems could be mistaken for drug abuse. This is a surprising omission from a book written for practitioners. Chapter 3 examines the wide range of drug-testing methods currently available to employers. The authors identify some statistical considerations involving the incidence of false positives and false negatives and how they relate to the prevalence of drug use in the employer's work force. The concepts of specificity and sensitivity are introduced and subsequently used as criteria for evaluating currently available testing techniques. In considerable detail, the chapter describes thin-layer chromatography, immunological methods (including the widely used EMIT), the new KDI Ouik Test, and techniques involving column chromatography (including the GC/MS, a popular confirmatory technique). The strengths and weaknesses of each of these tests are measured against the criteria of specificity and sensitivity, leading the authors to highlight the need for confirmatory testing. Chapter 5 is devoted to pragmatic issues and will be primarily of interest to practitioners. This chapter examines the major questions that employers must address in deciding whether to test, when to test, and how to test for drugs. Specific considerations include the public/private sector status of the employer, whether the employees are unionized, the nature of their jobs, the prevalence of the drug problem, state or federal legislation governing drug testing, and the probable impact of the program on the morale and loyalty of the employees. Omitted from the list of considerations is the status of the employment-at-will doctrine in the state in which the employer is located. If the employer is located in a state where the courts have shown a propensity to erode the employment-at-will doctrine, civil suits challenging drug-testing programs are likely to be problematic for the employer. This would be particularly true in states where the courts have recognized an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing which mandates just cause for discharge. Aside from these initial considerations, the chapter examines the multitude of decisions that must be made by employers prior to implementing a drug-testing program. These include the determination of when to test (randomly, as part of a routine physical exam, after industrial accidents, or when there is an individualized suspicion of drug abuse), the selection of the screening device and confirmatory

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test, the collection of the sample, the use of consent forms, and what to do w h e n an employee refuses to submit to the test. In summary, the book provides an excellent overview of legal, medical, and practical issues pertaining to drug-testing programs. The authors carefully limit their discussion to these specific areas and avoid discussions of the philosophical or moral considerations regarding drug testing. Thus, a practitioner who seeks guidance as to whether testing is the "right" thing to do will have to look elsewhere. For practitioners who have resolved the morality issue, this book will prove most useful in identifying the legal landmines. The practitioner should bear in mind, however, that the law is still evolving in this area, as are arbitral standards and medical technology. The book is limited to what is currently known and can only speculate as to future developments. The authors properly alert their readers to this fact. Jane K. Giacobbe

University of Massachusetts School of Management Amherst, Massachusetts 01003